En route to Namazu fish market, on the Izu Peninsula.
Took the ferry back at sunset. Had the entire upper deck for the two of us.
Sailed past Mt Fuji at twilight.
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I decided against posting this on the Mozza thread, but it speaks to the discussion about service.
This ain’t Italy. This is ‘Murica!
I waited tables. When it was really busy managers and hostesses had a saying “Get ‘em in and get ‘em out”. This meant checking your tables frequently, promptly delivering food, vigilantly clearing finished plates, frequently asking “May I get you anything else?” If the answer was “No” that check went down immediately. It wasn’t meant to be discourteous. It was to avoid leaving new arrivals waiting and disrupting the flow of service. If I did it right the customer never noticed and if they balked I backed off and told the manager to stuff it. This was a time when you only had a starter (appetizer, soup or salad) an entree, dessert & coffee. Delivering courses at the same time was a huge no no. But now with multiple dishes and shared plates it is harder. Some (not all) servers use this as an excuse to dump everything on the table at once - a big pet peeve of mine. But Chi Spacca is small and they’re trying to make a profit. They sat us without our whole party in attendance which is a plus. We were definitely pushed to order all at once. But we didn’t feel the pacing was off or pushed to finish quickly and they welcomed additional orders. My problem is with improperly trained and easily flummoxed servers at the Mozzaplex. Our recent server showed her irritation with too many questions, didn’t listen to specific requests and screwed up the bill twice causing a manager to get involved. Being a good server is a skill believe it or not. L.A. has a lot of servers who are lackadaisical and think they shouldn’t be there. I was taught no matter what the job is do it right or don’t do it. Waitressing makes me more sympathetic to servers but also more critical. 
P.S. Do your server a favor, assess your order carefully and ask for extra stuff at one-time when possible. Asking for extra butter, condiments, sauces, napkins, silverware separately is inconsiderate and makes your server have to constantly run back and forth to the kitchen.
Happy Eating!
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oYou perfectly described why service in America is often not inviting and doesn’t think about the customer experience as the key to a good restaurant visit but just to get the maximum amount of money in the shortest period of time from a customer. It points to the difference in culture of the importance and meaning of good food, e.g. fuel vs. important part of daily life. Everything you described as important, e.g. frequently checking the table, frequent asking etc, etc. are all signs for bad service for me. (And as a side note - there is hardly anything more annoying then the american habit to try to “customize” your order - just order the damn dish - the chef has actually thought about it and if you don’t like it, order something else)
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Yes, when you put it that way it does sound awful, lol. But it is what it is in the U.S. Like I said, if you’re savvy enough they don’t notice. You can check on your table frequently without speaking or the customer even noticing. I would only ask twice if they were okay and needed anything - once after they’ve had a chance to assess their meal for anything wrong or missing and later to see if “everything is fine”. Which is what all servers are trained to do. I get irritated if a server doesn’t do that for me. It’s just that some servers don’t get that and they hover and push. But yes, it is true, if it’s busy and they linger you’re definitely pushed to ask more than once “Will there be anything else?” It hasn’t effected my love of eating out though and it’s still my favorite thing to do. 
But then again, I haven’t spent much time in Europe.
That’s funny. I have two difficult girlfriends who do this. We tell them the same thing and that it’s kind of insulting to the chef. We encourage them to try it the way it is first. But no, one even does it at the drive-thru. One of my friends straight out asked if they ever wondered how many times their food had been spit in. 
There are those that shower their plate with black pepper without even giving it a taste first. 
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OMG that brings me right back to my mom. Big no no! Or adding salt before you taste lol
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Or those that take a bottle of Soy Sauce and pour it over everything they ordered at an Asian restaurant without trying it first.
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This is supposedly why Ricky Piña doesn’t have lime at Ricky’s Fish Tacos.
I shower my soups/salads with black pepper and anything italian with parm. I don’t care, judge me.
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Ha! It’s not much of a problem if you at least taste it first? Perhaps your soup/salad is already immensely peppery?
One of my pet-peeves: when the dish is placed on the table and the server immediately asks if I want fresh cracked pepper or parm - chances are that I do, but let me taste the dish first, please.
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That gives me flashbacks to my college roommate’s Caucasian girlfriend who had the most unadventurous palate I’ve known who started lecturing me on how I was eating my steamed white rice “wrong”. I was supposed to douse it in soy sauce and then throw a bunch of butter on top because that’s how rice “should” be eaten.
Nevermind that I had made a nice braised chicken dish and a side of stir fry veggies with oyster sauce to pair with the plain white rice. I obviously didn’t know how to eat asian food properly. 
Is that equivalent to someone dumping a ton of hot sauce into every dish before they start?
I must confess, if it’s a pasta dish, I pretty much know I’ll want parm on it regardless. Unless it’s super high end restaurant which means I’ll taste, etc first. But standard Italian joint? Bring on the parm!
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Where’d they go?
At a high end restaurant, is it bad to stiff my waiter on a portion of his tip if he didn’t warn about a disgustingly bad dish and didn’t take it off the bill either when told about said dish? He certainly seemed to know how bad it is.
Were you expecting your server to actively steer you away from a menu item at a restaurant where s/he works?
In a way, yes. They don’t have to tell me that what I ordered is bad but I expect them to steer me toward option #2 since he presented me with 2 options.
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Nah, don’t feel bad for stiffing him on the tip in this case. I don’t know what you mean by “he certainly seemed to know how bad it is,” but I’ll trust you know what you’re talking about with this one.
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